'Monster' winter storm heads East

AccuWeather.com reports the caboose in the series of storms walloping California and the Southwest with flooding rain and yards of snow will bring a white Christmas to parts of the South, a coastal mid-Atlantic snowstorm Sunday and perhaps a New England blizzard on Monday.

Stop playing with your snow globes and grab the snow shovels, as the former monster West Coast storm will spread snow cross-country to the East Coast over the long Christmas weekend.

The storm will bring a moderate to heavy snowfall over parts of the Plains. Enough snow will fall in part of this area to disrupt travel and cause shovels and plows to be needed over a large part from the I-70 to I-90 corridor. Omaha, Huron, Des Moines and St. Louis, that's you!

An energy transfer toward the south will cause snow to become spotty and light over the Ohio Valley region. Even so, pockets of slippery travel can be expected from the I-40 to I-80 corridor with snowfall ranging from a few flakes to a few inches. The snow will cover Chicago, Louisville, Cincinnati and Nashville.

In the South, essentially from the I-20 corridor northward to I-81, it seems a white Christmas is in order, but also travel problems due to road conditions ranging from wet to slushy to icy and snow covered.

Snow accumulations will range upward from a coating to an inch or two in portions of northern Alabama to several inches over northern Georgia to western North Carolina to perhaps a half a foot or more in southeastern Virginia and part of northeastern North Carolina.

The storm will continue to grow in size and strength along the mid-Atlantic and New England coasts, but the storm track will hold the key as to how severe the storm is and how much, if any snow falls on coastal to inland locations.

AccuWeather.com meteorologists want to stress that a shift in storm track as little as 50 miles could mean the difference between flurries or a nuisance snowfall and a back-breaking snowstorm or blizzard.

In this case, the farther east you are, the worst conditions would be. This applies particularly from Washington, D.C., to Philadelphia and New York City on Sunday.

It seems an all-out blizzard will unfold Sunday night and Monday at least part of New England.

Most of our forecast tools and opinions of meteorologists at AccuWeather.com are in agreement for wind-whipped snow for eastern New England with the storm. Again, depending on track, parts of New England could be in line for a foot or more of snow.

A track closer to the coast could not only bury the I-95 mid-Atlantic cities, but it could also bring rain to Cape Cod.

As a result, people may have problems getting home from holiday ventures early next week as a result, especially in the coastal mid-Atlantic and New England. Conditions will be cold, but improving in the South by that time.